A Day in The Life: Part 8

The Rocket clicked away from the spybot’s view of downtown to a map “We’re not near any of those bases. Our National Guard base and training grounds don’t rate an attack. Uh… Wait. Selfridge Air National Guard base is being attacked.”

Everyone turned as he zoomed in on the base. From above, it wasn’t much more than green grass, buildings and several long runways.

The Rocket peered up at the wall screen. “I don’t think they expect us to help. We’re on the other side of the state and it’s looking like Detroit’s Unity team is working with the Canadian team in Windsor to defend the base.”

He tapped on his keyboard and the view changed from Google map’s view of the base to a television station’s. Words near the bottom of the screen labeled it the “Fox 2 SkyFox helicopter” view.

Smaller windows showing other stations local to both Grand Lake and Detroit ran down the side.

On the large window showing Fox 2’s view of Selfridge, feathered dinosaurs as well as armored vehicles charged across the grass, running towards different buildings around the long runways. Beams of colored light burned on the screen.

There were hundreds, possibly thousands of them. No telltale bluish-white flicker appeared, but a gateway had to be somewhere on or near the base.

The only visible humans lay on the ground, but by evidence of the muzzle flashes alone, more had to be inside the complex of buildings to the right of the runways

Gravity Star stared up at the screen, her voice raising as she talked. “We should be doing something.”

In a normal voice, Railgun said, “Night Cat and Shift have to be near there by now.”

Control turned away from her screens. “Should I redirect them?”

The Rocket stared upward. “I’m beginning to think you’ll have to. Thing is, the local teams say they’re responding. Maybe they are and we just can’t tell. A lot of the people I know about over there are street level heroes who are great fighters, but not people who could do much against an invasion—whoa.”

A wake appeared in the grass leading toward the dinosaur army, the ground sinking in the middle, but piling up on sides, much like the wake of speedboat or a shark. The dinosaur soldiers saw it, turning to point their weapons, firing at the dirt.

It had no effect.

Where the wake met the army, the soldiers sank waist deep into the earth, and that wasn’t the worst that happened to them. The grass began to move all around them and the soldiers on the edges went down in a wave of gray.

Even zooming in, the helicopter wasn’t close enough to show the details.

Gravity Star asked, “Oh my God, what’s that?”

The Rocket kept on staring. “I think I know. There’s this super in Detroit who isn’t on any team. I’m not sure he’s even got an official codename, but figure he’s got the powers of Aquaman, but for the city, not the ocean. He’s got an insane burrowing speed and telepathic power over small mammals. So, I’d bet the gray wave is mostly moles, shrews, mice and rats, but there might be weasels, opossums, ground hogs and badgers out there.”

A group of dinosaur soldiers stopped, breaking off from the main group, running into each other as if blinded, tripping, falling and sometimes firing their weapons. Small black and white animals ran off into the field.

“Also skunks,” the Rocket added. “I didn’t know he was that powerful. He’s slowing the main wave on his own.”

But he wasn’t on his own.

A gray, oval shaped vehicle floated toward the field. People sat inside, all of them visible because the vehicle had no roof and the sides were no higher than a person’s waist. The passengers’ only protection came in the form of the white shimmer of a force field above and below it.

Dozens of small missiles fired from the bottom of the flying device, each of them exploding. Near each explosion a transparent white dome appeared, covering and imprisoning the dinosaur soldiers or sometimes one of their vehicles.

The force shields weren’t easy to destroy. An imprisoned tank fired off a shell that ricocheted around its dome, finally destroying the tank that fired it. The soldiers under other domes fired their weapons at the walls without the beams ricocheting, but also without doing the walls any damage.

The smartest pulled shovels from their pack and began to dig. That would have worked if the rats and mice weren’t faster at digging their way in than the soldiers were at digging out. The soldiers ended up rolling around on the ground, flailing and swatting at the gray, furry wave that consumed them.

Even before the humans on the base began their counterattack or the other supers jumped out of Instrumentality’s gray flyer, the Rocket said, “I think they’re going to make it.”

Night Wolf nodded. “Oh, yeah. I think I’m going to have nightmares about being eaten by mice tonight. You want to check on other cities?”

They turned on cable news stations, checked out live streams that they found online. Not everywhere had done as well. Few places had the warning that Grand Lake had, found the origin point, or destroyed it. Most cities woke to thousands of soldiers and more pouring in. Some had been bombed by their own country’s planes or ships to contain the invasion.

Railgun said what I’d been thinking, “I thought our people would be doing better than this.”

A deep voice I remembered from my childhood said, “Me, too.”

I turned around in my chair. C stood there next to Accelerando. He wore the last version of his costume from the early 80s—red, white, and blue, but mostly red with blue and white as accents. Unlike in the 1980s, he carried a white cane and wore dark sunglasses.

His mask and sunglasses didn’t hide his dark skin or his white hair. Nor did his costume hide his muscles. He walked without a limp or any weakness. He stood with his head held high and looking in our direction—blind, but completely aware of where we were.

Accelerando couldn’t have been anyone but a relative. Except for being young, a woman, and sighted, she could have been him—the same posture, similar high cheekbones.

The Mystic, Blue and Storm King stood behind them.

“Railgun,” he said, “please take over Control’s duties for now. Control, Rocket, Night Wolf, Mystic and Accelerando, please go to the lab. Blue, Storm King, and Gravity Star, be ready to deploy. I’m sure they won’t leave us alone.”

And I’m not sure which “they” Railgun and C are talking about when she says Railgun said “I thought they’d be doing better than this.” Is she talking about attackers or defenders? I may have just read it weird.

Well here I am again at last and I must say I rather enjoy this arc, I was surprised when I saw that this would be from the point of view of a journalist but eh why not, although I am pretty sure I have seen the powered journalist interviewing heroes in another webserial, can’t recall which though bah it was rahter different so…

So we got an interdimensional invading force of evolved Dinosaurs that have apparently tried to take over more than once, i wonder are they only one faction of their world ? Is their world united under one banner ? Have they expanded on more than one earth ? anyway they seem to rather suck at tactics and strategy given how they are doing things as well as lacking powered individuals of their own, though this could be proven wrong later although them having been taken down before seems to be proof of the tactical and strategic suckage(yes it’s a word now).

Oh man, Skunk lord is great gotta respect the guy…You know when I first read the guy got Aquaman’s power for cities I was thinking he was Jack Bloody Hawksmoore and could talk to the cities like Aquaman does to fish(yes I AM and Authority fan, well the original run by Warren Ellis anyway).

And yes Worm taught us all to respect Bug manipulators and how to use Spiders right as well as always go for the eyes and other soft bits.

This response is before reading the next chapter, and you may have addressed it. C may be experienced and definitely worthy of respect, but he really took charge without even seeming to ask if he could. What team member is currently supposed o be leading, and are they going to react to the abrupt (though possibly justified) usurpation of leadership?